Losing my faith, help

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Alexandria2020 said:
oh so you’re nearby the Ontario province border? Could you tell where exactly you are? or the nearby city?
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There’s no such thing as a nearby city, it’s a very remote area! There’s towns and villages. The closest main city is Toronto, and it’s a 5 hour drive. 2 hours away there’s North Bay and there’s a latin mass around there. I want to go soon but I could not do it very often, certainly not every Sunday.
 
mugglestruggle said:
The closest main city is Toronto, and it’s a 5 hour drive.
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so you’re in Quebec province, but Toronto is closest to you? So I guess you’re nearby some place like Ville-Marie? where Toronto is even closer to you than Montreal or Quebec city.
Gotcha I get your point. you’re pretty isolated away from a main town or city.
 
mugglestruggle said:
Exactly! That’s where I live. all major cities are 5 hours or more, toronto, ottawa, montreal lol
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my other suggestion would be to watch the Mass posted on ewtn.com
they post on their site daily. plus go to your local parish as well.
Also check out the YouTube channel of St. Mary of Pine Bluff. They post daily Mass as well.
and get to learn more about the faith via the internet. this medium definitely opens doors for more knowledge. And continue praying.
 
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There’s another thread right now about Vatican II going on.
I can’t help but think “this is the fruit of Vatican II, that in some places even in a historically Catholic region, liturgies are so off-putting that devout Catholics find them incredibly discouraging”. It’s too bad that many people can’t attend good liturgy unless they live near a big city.
 
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When people say they simply can’t move, I’m curious what possible reasons could there be that makes a move impossible? I don’t know the situation in other countries, including Canada, but in the US at least, in most cases it’s more that you choose not to move rather than you can’t. I guess I could see for married people if their spouse refuses to move, of course you would choose your spouse over traditional Mass (though I would wonder about the health of such a relationship to be honest but I’m no expert in these things).

Other than that, what circumstances would make it simply impossible to move? I get not ideal, inconvenient, have to give up your job, home, farm, etc. But none of these things make it impossible. It’s just a matter of priorities. Enlighten me.
 
I formerly lost faith in the Catholic Church, but experiences outside of the church has made me miss it. I tried being Lutheran for a while but the people were garbage. It was more evangelical and judgmental, especially towards a celibate male with no kids like me. Catholics respected me far more, and appreciated me. I’ve decided that some differences I’ve had with the Catholic Church can be overcome with prayer and reflection.

I’ve had discomfort with Mary being placed on a high importance, but I’ll think “It’s not like they put her in the Trinity” going forward. I’ve also never understood purgatory, but I’ve come to my own understanding of it over the years. I don’t have a perfect understanding of the Catholic Church, but I’m willing to pray about it.
 
LisaB said:
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Other than that, what circumstances would make it simply impossible to move? I get not ideal, inconvenient, have to give up your job, home, farm, etc. But none of these things make it impossible. It’s just a matter of priorities. Enlighten me.
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Well, how about, “our family would take a large financial hit” if we moved. For instance, if one or both spouses have somewhat niche jobs (maybe a particular kind of academic, medical professional, etc) that are uncommon enough that both spouses could not easily find work again in the same region. Or if you happen to live, say in the American Midwest, which has a low cost of living, and the family were to move somewhere more expensive (almost anywhere else in the country).
Also, for intance, certain states have school choice / vouchers will allow their kids to attend Catholic schools, and Catholic schools would be prohibitively expensive in other states.
I don’t know if any of these are the case for the OP, but there are things like jobs that have contracts, unusual / niche professions, family obligations, that make it near impossible to move, or at least to move in the near future.
 
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Do you find God in nature, like the beauty of a sunset, or the wonder of the stars? God is everywhere, so don’t worry if society is messed up or your church is problematic. Faith in God isn’t limited to going to church once a week. Read the Bible if you can, too.
 
Thank you. This give me an idea of what people mean when they say it’s impossible for them to move. I think most of these things don’t make it impossible, just difficult.

I must say that if one is at a point of losing one’s faith, it may be worth it to give up everything in order to safeguard the entire purpose of our existence. Hopefully OP was just using it as an expression and is not actually at risk of losing her faith. But if she is, nothing in this world is more important and worth turning our lives upside down for.
 
Yes, @LisaB, and I think that the OP is not actually in danger of losing her faith. I suspect that a better description would be that she’s fed up to the teeth with bad liturgy. I think that if she had a parish with good liturgy near her, she wouldn’t be having these thoughts about losing her faith at all.
 
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mugglestruggle said:
How do you deal with this?
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When I lived in a remote Australian town where Mass was held once a month (and always rather perfunctorily), I bore it with patience and humility by developing the breadth, depth and reverence of my own private prayer life: chanting the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Latin, learning Gregorian chants from the Liber Usualis (a feat for someone who is tone deaf), continuously reading theological and spiritual writings from Augustine, St John of the Cross and others.

None can this can even remotely substitute for a reverent and orthodox Mass, but it can certainly help to ameliorate the deprivation thereof.
 
I realize I haven’t been clear on a few things!
First, when I talked about “losing my faith”, it was a “spur-of-the-moment” statement, and I was targeting the catholic church, and not my faith in Jesus in general. I can see how it can be confusing for any devout catholic on this forum with a different reality than mine. I’ve been realizing that our experience as a christian weighs immensely in the balance!

Secondly, as for my reasons not to move to another area, there are plenty. I’ve spent the last few years travelling and living abroad, and I couldn’t see my family for almost 2 years. I’ve only recently come back to my home region, and my fiancé and I bought a house back in january. We’re getting married next month. His father is very sick and we want to live close by for as long as he’s alive. The life here is also very ideal for a family - plenty of space to have many kids, to grow our own food, cheap housing, friendly and helpful neighbors. Also a good christian community, only they’re not catholic. The only issue here for us is the issue of the catholic church !

As some of you know, I only recently came back to catholicism. Before that, I read the Bible at home, prayed and worshipped all the time, and never in my life have I been so in FIRE for Jesus. He was in all areas of my life, hence why I say God is everywhere so moving should not be the only option in my book. Sadly my faith is not the same since coming back to catholicism and that’s what makes me sad and upset.

P.S.: my problem with the local parishes is legitimate. I’m not being fussy about details. Since churches reopened after the lockdown, all churches have been using pre recorded music, one of the priests shows up wearing flip flops, changing the words for exemple instead of saying “Jesus Christ our lord and savior” he will say “our brother and our friend”… he introduced so many foreign things into his masses, and he’s been watering down the gospel so much that all you can pick up from his sermons is “peace and love”. no joke. Also as I mentionned, only elders are attending. Last Sunday I went and there was an African priest who seemed to be quite passionate about Jesus (he’s not usually there) but his preaching style didn’t fit with the attendance who were almost sleeping. It was so sad.
 
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Judas Iscariot was selected by Jesus for a specific role as one of the Twelve—let us not forget that—yet he chose for himself a different path. He gave in to sin, denying Christ and turning Him in to eventually be murdered.

Judas was a priest who failed. He doesn’t get a halo in the medieval paintings. He doesn’t get a holy card and novena. His name is pretty much only mentioned as an example of what not to do, of who not to be like. Yet, as bad as Judas was he didn’t prevent the disciples from following Jesus. He didn’t get in the way of their ministry.
“You can’t leave Peter because of Judas.”

~ Tim Staples
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No matter how sinful a person Judas was, no matter how sinful the actions of a priest or bishop, or anyone for that matter, the teaching, preaching, and ministry of Jesus and His Church goes on. This doesn’t lessen the fact that sin is sin and that hurts, in this case very much. As the Body of Christ, we mourn the effects of these sins, because what hurts our brothers and sisters, hurts us as well.

 
Here is a link to a website in which you can view thousands of Church bulletins:
https://www.parishesonline.com/

You can search by your zip code or city in order to identify the Churches near to you.

Perhaps the writings in a specific Church’s bulletin will help you to identify a Church that shows more respect for the liturgy. Maybe even a Latin Mass in your area.

I hope things work out for you.
 
Do not leave Christ because there is a Judas (or many).

Solution to the problem: Get to a TLM. You are in spiritual warfare, you best be going on the offensive. Where is the enemy attacking you? Faith. How? Irreverence. So counter this with reverence: go out of your way to demonstrate reverence, including (if at all possible) a TLM. Every time doubts come to you about your faith, make acts of the contrary virtue: Pray an act of faith, or something along those lines. And, most importantly, pray at least 5 decades of the Rosary every day no matter what

God Bless, I wish you the best!
 
@mugglestruggle-I can’t offer you any advice, but I’m praying for you. Just know that. I really wish there were simple answers to problems like this, but often times it’s a very complex situation.
 
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